Cadbury Nigeria Plc piled up further foreign exchange losses in the second quarter, which extended its net loss from N7.3 billion in the first quarter to N9.7 billion at half year.
Mostly realised net foreign exchange losses grew from N11.5 billion at the end of the first quarter to N15.8 billion at half year.
The half year unaudited financial report of the beverages and confectionaries manufacturers at the end of June 2024 however shows a comparatively better in the second quarter than both the first quarter and the corresponding quarter last year.
The loss for the quarter fell from N18 billion to N2.4 billion year-on-year and from N7.3 billion in the first quarter.
Also, the loss-driving foreign exchange losses dropped from N11.5 billion in the first quarter to N4.3 billion in the second quarter against a nil exchange loss in the same period in 2023.
There were other cost reductions in the second quarter that helped to trim the net loss figure for the period.
These include a sharp drop in other loss from N3.4 billion in the same period last year to N204 million in the second quarter.
Selling and distribution expenses only edged up from N1.8 billion to N1.9 billion over the same period and administrative costs went down from N544 million to N517 million over the period.
The cost reductions and savings were reinforced by a strong growth of 45.7 percent in sales revenue to N27.8 billion for the second quarter.
However, production costs seem to have run out of control in the second quarter, jumping close to two folds from N11.8 billion in the second quarter of last year to N23 billion for the second quarter of 2024.
The increase in production costs claimed more than all the increase of N8.7 billion in sales in the second quarter, resulting in a drop in gross profit from over N7 billion to N4.6 billion year-on-year.
The cost savings extracted from operating costs remedied the drop in gross profit and enabled an increase in operating profit from N1.5 billion to slightly below N2 billion over the review period.
